An outsider’s look at homes reveals the significance of having a back door in Java (Back door Java: state formation and the domestic in working class Java, 2006, page 55):

I did not fully understand why they did not want to use the kitchen in our house, because it had running water and tiled counter and floor space. Bu Sae’s kitchen, in contrast, was a small dark, dirt-floored annex to the main house, reached by a dirt path running along the east side of her house and next to our own. There was very little room and no clear space for food preparation. Yet, Bu Sae was insistent that we could not know how many people would attend and thus we could not use my house. What if we ran out of something, glasses, piring (plates), or tea? We had no back door to go get more.

The American view is focused on an infinite supply of water and space within the room. However, the back door in Java seems to represent the link to more essential services as well as a larger social network — beyond the room, or even a family.

This makes quite a bit of sense. Think about this in terms of cloud computing. Better to have a shiny new-looking server that is clean and with some capacity, or to have a server with access to many more that can expand and work together more flexibly to meet demand?

Think about it also in terms of social network sites. Some friends are greeted through the front door, and some are let in the back door.

These examples, from an Anthropologist’s view of homes in Java, tempt me to try and use the term “back door” instead of “cloud” to describe connected and scalable services that leverage social network groups…but I have a feeling that the current and very common use of the phrase “back door” in computing (unauthorized access) is probably impossible to overcome. I have to admit the title caught me off guard, but I’m glad I read the book.